Not close enough

Human milk banks are important for infants who do not have access to mother's milk. But India is yet to see large-scale rollout of such centres

- TARAN DEOL

EARLY THIS year, Poonam (name changed), a resident of Amravati in Maharashtra, lost her four-month-old son following a surgery to fix a hole in his heart. Amid the grief and loss she found a purpose that kept her going. "My son was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai. There were two other babies in the NICU. One mother was not able to express milk. So I offered to give her child my milk instead of formula," Poonam recalls. After losing her son, Poonam decided to continue donating her milk rather than take medication to stop lactation. "After returning to Amravati, I started going to the human milk bank at Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Memorial Medical College and donated 100-120 ml daily for over a month," she says. Women like Poonam are the backbone of India's human milk bank network.

Breast milk is the ideal food for infants, says the World Health Organization (WHO). It contains nutrients and antibodies crucial for their early days. WHO recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months. If mother's milk is not available, it says donated milk is the next best option. Brazil is a key example for a successful network of human milk banks; the first facility there was set up in 1943. Today, it has the world's largest human milk bank network. As per the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, as of 2015, Brazil has 218 of the 301 human milk banks in the region.